Informal Gathering for Members of AWHS Classes of 1976 & 1978 at Captain's Cove in Bridgeport Scheduled for Sunday, July 11, from 1 to 7 p.m.

An informal gathering for Andrew Warde High School alumni from the classes of 1976 and 1978 will take place Sunday afternoon, July 11, from 1 to 7 o'clock at Captain's Cove Seaport in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport.

The event originally began as a casual get-together a few years ago by members of the Warde Class of 1978 as a means to stay in touch. However, it has quickly become an annual tradition by expanding to include other classes.

The highlight of this year's event will be a performance by the local band To the Max, featuring Andrew Warde High School graduates Rob Fried (1977) and Jerry Vigorito (1976), local businessmen and musicians who founded Band Together in 2005. Band Together creates great musical events which unite a community of talented musicians with concerned citizens to raise money for Connecticut families in need or local charities.

As for the venue, since 1982, Captain’s Cove Seaport, located on historic Black Rock Harbor, has grown from a vacant lot and a handful of slips to one of Connecticut’s premier tourist attractions and seaport complexes. Food and drinks are available in the 400-seat restaurant, which includes everything from different varieties of seafood to hot dogs and hamburgers to chicken sandwiches.

There are many novelty gift shops built in Colonial and Victorian architectural styles along the boardwalk. Visitors may also enjoy an hour-long boat ride on Long Island Sound aboard the Chief. There are many other seasonal attractions as well. Captain's Cove is an active maritime and amusement center for residents of southwestern Connecticut.

Paul

Andrew Warde High School's Class of 1959 Awards Scholarships to Two FWHS Class of 2010 Students

Andrew Warde High School's Class of 1959 presented two $500 scholarships last night to two students from this year's graduating class at Fairfield Warde High School.

Fifty-year reunion co-chairs Bob Comers and his wife, Mickie, presented the awards to FWHS seniors Jillian Lubrano and John Hanilla during the annual scholarship night at the high school.

"We were able to have some funds left over" following last year's 50-year reunion, Comers told me via email this morning. "It was great to be back in the auditorium."

Comers, a former Fairfield Police Captain who retired after 43 years of service to the community last year, and his wife, Mickie, helped organize the highly successful 50-year reunion last August 22 at Tashua Knolls in Trumbull.

The Andrew Warde High School Class of 1959 was the third graduating class at Warde, and the last group with roots to Roger Ludlowe High School. The classmates attended Ludlowe High School during their freshman year before moving into the new high school in the Fall of 1956.

Fairfield Warde High School's Class of 2010 will hold its commencement exercises this evening. Best wishes to this year's graduates.

Paul

"Summer Breeze" Junior Prom, School Council Elections, and Commencement Highlight Front Page of Crimson Crier Issue from June of 1974

The front-page headlines of the Crimson Crier in June of 1974 featured stories on the "Summer Breeze" junior prom, school council elections, and commencement exercises for the Class of 1974. It was the last of six issues of Warde's "Periodical Periodical" for the 1973-74 school year. Click the image below to see the PDF version of the newspaper.

A full complement of 20 Andrew Warde High School Crimson Crier newspapers is available for download at andrewwarde.com. The quality is outstanding, and the text and photographs may even be enlarged if you so desire. Click the link in the right-hand margin to download the issues.

Special thanks to Todd Gukelberger of Vintage Images in Fairfield for formatting each page of every issue from late 1972 through early 1976. Thanks are also extended to Andrew Warde High School 1976 graduate, classmate, and ex-Crimson Crier photographer Andy Horton for lending the issues to us.

If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDF files, download it for free here. Also, if you have any old copies of the Crimson Crier from 1956 through 1987, I'd like to make them available online. Please contact me via email.

Paul

Dave Schulz to be Inducted into FCIAC Hall of Fame at Annual Awards Reception Next Week

Dave Schulz made quite a name for himself during his days at Andrew Warde High School in the early 1970s. However, the current athletic director at cross-town rival Fairfield Ludlowe High School has fashioned an even more impressive resume as a coach and teacher in the Fairfield public school system for nearly 30 years.

As a result, Schulz, pictured below left with current Roger Ludlowe Middle School principal Glenn Mackno after leading the Warde boys' basketball team to the 1972-73 FCIAC East Division championship, will be among six new members to be inducted into the FCIAC Hall of Fame at the annual FCIAC Awards Reception next Tuesday evening, June 15, at 5:30 at Testo's Restaurant in Bridgeport.

"I am honored to be inducted into the FCIAC Hall of Fame, and to be included with so many outstanding coaches and administrators who are currently enshrined," Schulz told me via email yesterday from his office at Ludlowe High School. "The FCIAC is, without question, the premier league in the state, and my association with it has always been special to me."

Schulz coached boys basketball for 18 years at Fairfield High School. He led the Mustangs to 11 FCIAC tournament appearances, advancing to the final in 1993, while his teams qualified for the state tournament 17 times, reaching the semifinals in 1992. He was honored by his peers as the FCIAC Coach of the Year six times and as the Connecticut High School Coaches' Association Coach of the Year in 2008.

"I was very fortunate to be able to coach in Fairfield for 27 years, and for most of those years to have coached with (the late) Walter Fitzgerald," added Schulz, who is completing his sixth-year as athletic director at Fairfield Ludlowe High School and whose Falcons' baseball team captured its first-ever FCIAC baseball championship this Spring.

"I believe we were able to instill a work ethic in our players which hopefully carried over to the rest of their lives. Seeing the improvement and confidence build in our players makes coaching very rewarding. Being named Athletic Director and then starting a new school and athletic program from scratch has also been very rewarding to me."

A member of the FCIAC Board of Directors since 1989, Schulz was the FCIAC president from 1996-98 and is currently second vice president. He developed and continues to facilitate the FCIAC scholar-athlete program, which honors a student-athlete from each team at all 19 member schools.

Schulz has fond memories of his days at Warde. "Playing basketball at Andrew Warde for Coach (Ed) Bengermino and how we grew together as a team to have a wonderful senior season will always stay with me," admitted Schulz, pictured above in a 1972-73 basketball game at the Melville Avenue high school.

"Working in the school system with Mike Abraham (above left) and Glenn Mackno (above right) for the past 32 years gives us the opportunity to always reminisce!"

Paul

Andrew Warde Product Shares Fond Memories of Growing Up in Stratfield Section of Town & Attending Kindergarten at Lincoln School

The following was written by Tony Procaccini, chairman of the Andrew Warde High School Class of 1976 30-year reunion committee, as a follow up to the previous entry about Lincoln School. The photo below shows Lincoln Park in October of 2008.

The Stratfield section of Fairfield was a great place in which to live one's early years when Lincoln School was still in existence. I recall an old-style squarish-shaped red brick structure on Jackman Avenue, located easy walking distance from my parents' house, which was (and still is) on the corner of Edgewood Place and Edgewood Road. The lot had the building and a concrete area for playing, running around, etc., of which a good portion remained many years after the demolition of the building. The foundation of the front steps was left in the ground, oddly enough, and could be seen for many years after the school's demise; this little "piece of the school" was on a centrally-located sloping area.

The specific memories I have of the school and my one year there are few, but clear. Two very tall trees - which remained after the demolition - were found on either side of the steps leading out to Fairmount Terrace, being the school's side entrance, I believe. Also, just inside that entrance was a box-shaped ice-cream vending machine. One opened the top, paid a nickel or so, and pulled out a frozen treat. Creamsicles were my favorite. One day's class consisted of playing musical instruments which were distributed to the kids. I took a percussion instrument, the cymbals, perhaps. (My piano-playing days were ahead of me at that point.)

After starting Grade 1 at nearby Our Lady of the Assumption School, I vividly remember Lincoln School still standing, but uninhabited. A few windows may have been shattered by kids' errant tosses of stones - I was not involved in that, rest assured - and the entire structure eventually went down. Some time after, the area was officially named Lincoln Park and the town developed it as a playground, too, for organized summer activities. All summer long, from 9 AM to 12 noon, then resuming after lunch from 1 to 4 PM, we played our hearts out there.

In late grammar school years and high school years, we, i.e., the many, many kids growing up in the area, transformed the park into a "sports complex." I am not kidding here. On the upper field (where the building was), we could play either football or baseball. On the lower field (where the school's playground surface had been), we could play baseball (with a fenced-in field, as opposed to the wide-open upper area) or basketball. The Parks Department supplied two metal basketball hoops and chain nets, and we improvised the rest.

Those of us who played baseball there remember "Mound rule on first, third and home," to accommodate small teams, and fall and winter meant full-court basketball games - even in very cold temperature - with many "visitors" coming from Bridgeport to join us. Many times, we had two half-court games running simultaneously, because, with a plethora of participants, it was unfair to keep so many players waiting for the next game. (Each half-court game could utilize a maximum of ten players, i.e., five-on-five.)

Lincoln School and the playground on the grounds provided many memories for me and my friends, over many years. I will never forget them. Now, if we only had some photos of the school....

Tony Procaccini
AWHS 1976 30-year Reunion Committee Chairman

Fairfield Board of Ed Initiated Action to Replace Washington & Lincoln Schools on This Date in 1962

Many students who attended Andrew Warde High School in the late 1950s and early 1960s were products of two of the town's oldest elementary schools, Washington and Lincoln. However, the aging schools were termed "obsolete" by the Fairfield Board of Education by the Spring of 1962.

As a result, 48 years ago this evening --- Friday, June 8, 1962 --- the board initiated action for the construction of a 20-to-24 room elementary school in the North Stratfield area to meet classroom needs and to replace Washington and Lincoln schools.

Joe O'Brien, a 1976 graduate of Andrew Warde High School, was a member of the last kindergarten class at Lincoln School in 1963-64. "I believe it was a tall structure, maybe three stories high, similar to the original Stratfield School before all the additions," wrote O'Brien, whose three older siblings also attended kindergarten at Lincoln School.

"The front door was between the two pine trees on Fairmount. The trees are still there, I think, and were used as goal posts for our pick-up football games later. George O'Brien (older than us and no relation) practiced his field goal kicking there. He was the place kicker for Warde at one time."

O"Brien remembered having Miss Davidson as his kindergarten teacher during half-day sessions which were split between morning and afternoon. After the school closed its doors for the last time, "I believe most of the students ended up at Stratfield or Assumption, or both like me," he recalled. "Assumption had no kindergarten at the time, however."

He added, "Once the school was closed and being prepared for demolition, my brother and I would go down there to smash the windows out with stones. (It was) great fun."

According to the newspaper story 48 years ago, the school board voted to request the Representative Town Meeting to appoint a building committee for the new school, acting on a recommendation by Dr. William J. Edgar, superintendent of schools.

Dr. Edgar said the proposed school in North Stratfield would be located on a 10-acre tract of land purchased by the town seven years earlier off Putting Green and Harvester roads.

He reported that the new school was needed to relieve the "pressures" on Stratfield and Fairfield Woods schools. In addition, it would allow for the closing of Lincoln School on Jackman Avenue and Washington School on Villa Avenue, both of which are old structures and had been earmarked for abandonment as "inefficient for the school program."

Upon completion of the new school in North Stratfield, students living in the southwestern section of the Lincoln School district would attend Stratfield School on Melville Avenue, and students in the North and East sections would attend the new school.

Pupils in the Washington School district would be shifted to Stratfield School, according to Dr. Edgar. Pupils in the North Stratfield area, who were attending either Fairfield Woods or Stratfield schools, would be assigned to the new school.

Dr. Edgar said the target date for the school opening was September in 1964. He pointed out that in order to meet the date, ground would have to be broken by the Summer of 1963.

The necessary machinery for getting a building committee, the appointment of an architect, and preparation of plans would require nearly a year, according to Dr. Edgar.

Truman Chase, director of transportation, assisted in outlining details of the school districts and the location of the school site.

Paul

The photos above show the sixth-grade classes at Lincoln and Washington schools in 1952. Many of the students graduated from Andrew Warde High School six years later.

Two Andrew Warde High School Students Participated in Kiwanis Club Luncheon Discussion About Drug Information Center 40 Years Ago Today

A discussion about the establishment of a drug information center by two Andrew Warde High School students and Mr. Charles Abraham, administrative assistant for instruction, took place at the Fairfield Kiwanis Club luncheon meeting in the Fairfield Motor Inn 40 years ago today, Wednesday, June 3, 1970.

The work done at Andrew Warde High School in launching a drive against the use of dangerous drugs and the plans for the drug information center, which was set up in a house on Sanford Street on a 13-week experimental basis, was explained by Mr. Abraham and the two Warde students, Jeannie Tatangelo and Judd Magilnick.

"The Talmud (Jewish book of law and wisdom) says that it takes 40 years to understand something," Magilnick told me by email today. "My memory of the luncheon is how gracious and friendly our adult hosts were."

Magilnick, who graduated from Yale University in 1974 and is married to Denise Kurtzman Magilnick, added, "I had expected something more like the evil-businessman type I'd seen in the James Bond films. I believe they served some kind of ground beef pie. It tasted good."

At the luncheon 40 years ago, it was emphasized that the aim of the program was not directed at eliminating the pusher, but drying up the demand. Magilnick and Tatangelo said the drive in the schools, including talks to junior high school students, has been focused against the use of heroin and LSD.

They stressed that they want to impress on students that it is not the "in thing" to use drugs, and that it is a social stigma to use drugs. They said they did not condone the use of marijuana or other drugs.

Tartangelo said students begin using drugs for several reasons. "A girl falls in love with a boy who is a user, and she becomes one, too," she said. "Some take drugs because they want to be friends with others who are addicted to the drug habit. Some take it to feel high, and others (use drugs) out of curiosity."

Magilnick had the opportunity to browse this Web site and wrote, "This is a great project you are doing here, particularly because it gives us a chance to honor great teachers and mentors like Coach Tetreau, and to think about simpler times. Thank you and congratulations."

Paul